


fish bowl

by SincerelyChaos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, First Kiss, Multi, Sapiosexuality, Surviving In A World Of Gold Fish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyChaos/pseuds/SincerelyChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost like being able to breath under water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fish bowl

**Author's Note:**

> Found this amongst my other ficlets on tumblr. 
> 
> It needed to be cleaned up a bit, but I found that although far from all relationships mentioned are sexual, the possible sapiosexual interpretation of them is something that has always been one of the most interesting things about the way I perceive the show.

It all begins with his brother. 

Sherlock is seven years old when he realises that what he's seeing when he looks at his brother is a glimpse of a mind that holds things bigger than the solar system and of a brilliant mouth that speaks languages that Sherlock is yet to understand.

And Sherlock isn’t sure whether he wants to be Mycroft or if he wants to be those foreign words that forms somewhere inside his brother’s unexplored - unattainable - brain. 

*

It isn’t until he’s describing a man with a military background and strong moral principles to Lestrade, only to interrupt himself when his eyes catches on a man who might have a very own set of principles, that he realises that something unusual is finally happening in this very predictable world. 

And John is unreadable only when it comes to the things Sherlock really wants to understand. He needs to crawl under that weathered skin and read the fragments of thoughts that forms conclusions so far from Sherlock’s own, and yet so unexpectedly… fierce. Sharp. Unpredictable. 

And it’s only when Sherlock twirls-spins-runs them both into a crystal clear haze of adrenaline that John will forget himself and let that sharpness out, so Sherlock makes it his mission to spin their life in that direction with every opportunity he gets, because it’s his only in if he ever wants to know how John’s blood feels as his mind calculate five different escape routes in less than a second, only to choose a sixth, even more tactic - brilliant - plan. And they’ll escape once again, catching their breath, laughing as the cortisol wears off, and they’ll be close enough so that it'll feel almost like being under that skin, inside those nerves. It would be almost like being able to breath under water. 

*

“This is how I want you to remember me,” she’d said, the tip of the crop caressing his bruised cheek. 

And for once, Sherlock found that he had no objections. He was drug-hazed, blurry eyed and the leather that moved over his skin was nothing compared to the chemically induced dreams where Irene showed him her deductions about a hiker who got distracted and lost his aim, lost his life, just as an airplane divided the sky. 

Her profession was far less intriguing than the way she played the game - a game in which she was the one setting the rules - and stood there naked, undisguised yet unreadable, before him, telling him things he had no wish to know about himself. But what looks like life is sometimes only a reflection in glass. 

*

In just a second, the man in front of him stepped out of the shadows and into the light of realisations. 

And he had never been Jim from IT, he’d never been anything but hysterical laughter and composed intelligence united in a man that wasn’t a man, but a mastermind. As Moriarty revealed the only real problem - the final problem - it wasn’t fear that caused the shivers Sherlock wouldn’t allow to surface. It was something else. It was the solar system again, but a solar system that lacked every trace of light, of ancient stars. Only the cold, sharp air of endless expands remained, and nothingness had never felt more like a promise. 

*

It all ends with his brother. 

Mycroft sits there in his three-piece suit, and he talks about living in a world of gold fish as Sherlock tries not to give himself away. Because if this is really just a fish bowl where the rounded glass creates illusions of eternity, that would explain why all sharpness around him fades as he approaches the glaso, and why goldfish is all that remains. 

And he can see it so clearly just then. See his brother as he talks in words that are no longer foreign, but which holds more implications than the combined words of the golden, circling creatures that surrounds them both. 

And he is sure now, over two decades later, that he doesn’t want to be Mycroft.

He wants to be the words that lives inside that mouth, the synaspses creating images of things outside the glass, and Sherlock wants to taste the words before they emerge, before they are diluted by the water that surrounds them as they’re standing there - two men caught in a fish bowl with no escape except the sanctuary of having each other. 

It isn’t what people do, this. But then people aren’t even aware of the fact that what they perceive as ‘life’ is only a water-filed jar where illusions of life are projected, so they won’t understand the significance of Sherlock closing the distance between himself and his brother, taking one step closer, needing to know what it feels like to be those words - to know what language taste like before it’s spoken. 

And as long as they are surrounded by water they’ll need to share what air still remains. 


End file.
